
Click the Sign in to Custom Search Engine button.If you have already created an account, enter that information and click Sign in. If you have not, click the Sign Up button in the upper right corner of the window.
- It is recommended that you use an Office 365 Service (departmental) account for this purpose. For more information regarding Service Accounts, please refer to 68238.
- You would use that account to sign in (for example, cms-support@doit.wisc.edu is assigned to individuals on the WiscWeb team and is visible when they log in).
Once you have gone through your sign-up process and verified your account, you'll be directed to the starting steps for your Custom Google Search. Enter your site URL in the Sites to search field. Be sure to use an asterisk (*) at the end to encompass your entire site. The instructions on screen help you determine which parts of your site to search.

Once you have set your options, click Create.
On the next page, you should get a confirmation screen that indicates that the custom search engine has been created, with several options for you to use the search engine.

To add this Custom Google Search engine to your site, click on the Control Panel button.In the next screen, click on Search engine ID in the Details section.

The Search engine ID code will be displayed. Highlight this and copy it it to your clipboard (Control+C or Command+C)
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Important
- Note: This app is not a “core app” under UW-Madison’s Google Privacy Policy or Terms of Service.
- Support: Support is not available from the UW-Madison Google team for non-core apps. We recommend the following for assistance:
- Consideration: While service accounts can be used for non-core apps, consider that these have a 0GB quota in My Drive.
- Consideration: Google will only add results for a page that has already been indexed by their search engine. If you are not seeing a page show up in your results, please consider reviewing and implementing the steps outlined in WiscWeb - Request Google to Recrawl Your Site or Page.
Overview
Google Programmable Search Engine allows you to provide your users with more robust search capabilities. The native WordPress search that comes standard with WiscWeb sites only searches for keywords in your pages and posts and can fail to find relevant results. Google's Programmable Search provides more accurate searches and includes additional content from uploaded files (like PDFs) and custom post types (like Fac/Staff content).
Here are a few examples of what you can do with this tool:
- Customize the appearance of your search results
- Connect it to your Google Analytics account so that the two tools are sharing data on user behaviors
- Add autocomplete to your search box
- Categorize your search results
For a full list of Google Programmable Search Engine's abilities, please see the related Google documentation.
Creating a Google Programmable Search account
To create a Google Programmable Search account, follow the instructions in UW-Madison Google Workspace - Create an ad-free Programmable Search Engine
Note: The documentation linked above will also walk you through how to remove ads from your search account.
Adding the search engine ID to your WiscWeb project
- Log into your WordPress site dashboard, hover your mouse over the Appearance menu on the left and choose Customize.

- In the left menu, select Search Options.
- In the next screen, check the box for "Use search on this site."
- Once you have that selected, you can then enter your Search Engine ID value in the field, and click Save & Publish

Keywords:
search engine results find google wiscweb cms home page locate site programmable custom SEO customizable
Owned by:
Matt G. in WiscWeb
Sites:
DoIT Help Desk, WiscWeb